Easter Island

19 April 2019

The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission takes us over one of the most remote islands in the world: Easter Island. Located in the Pacific Ocean, over 3500 km off the west coast of South America, this Chilean island is also known as Rapa Nui by its original inhabitants. The island was given its current name the day Europeans arrived in the 1700s – on Easter Sunday.

The island is famous for its monolithic stone statues, called Moai, said to honour the memory of the inhabitants' ancestors. There are nearly 1000 scattered around the island, usually positioned near freshwater. Many are located near the Rano Raraku volcano, on the southeast coast. The white edges along the southern coast show the harsh waves colliding with the shore.

The Earth Watching project is an ESA/ESRIN service to help local authorities and to promote the benefits of remote sensing data during emergencies, sending images and articles to newspapers, magazines and TV stations.

The Earth Watching website features not only imagery of natural disasters, but also promotes various satellite remote sensing applications through images and articles. Some examples are shown in the special events part of the website.